Stolen (19 page)

The airport was huge, overwhelming—Julia had never been to any airport—and as she walked close to Carlin, all she could think about was Cayne’s heavy footsteps behind her. How shameful; she should be thinking about Marilee. Or Herbert. Or Anise…

As they waited in the security line, where Cayne ended up having to use his power of suggestion one more time to convince the personnel not to ask for anyone’s ID, Julia thought how strange it was—to be fleeing the Chosen, now. To think that they were the hunters, now. But she no longer felt afraid. She’d had her nerves exorcised by life. She’d seen friends die. She’d seen family die—by Samyaza’s fire. Anyone who came for her now—anyone who might force her into a life she didn’t want… Julia would fight them.
 

How strange that that included Cayne. Metaphorically, anyway.

So far, he’d kept his nose clean among the group. He was being surprisingly decent to Drew, and he hadn’t once glared back at Carlin, who couldn’t seem to stop staring accusingly at him. It was weird, because Julia definitely felt possessive over him. She just didn’t know what else she felt. She was tired—so tired—of not knowing what to think. For most of her life it had been wondering about her current foster family: How long would they last? Would they be good or terrible? And about herself: Had her real, biological family had the same…quirks? More recently it had been the Chosen—although she thought Stained was a more appropriate name. Now, in the midst of dealing with that crushing disappointment, she had to wonder about Cayne.

The really horrible thing was, she didn’t hate him because he’d killed Chosen. She should have, and Julia attributed her lack of strong reaction to some sort of problem with her moral compass. Because she cared about him, still…like, as much as ever. Once she admitted that, her discomfort and unease around him lessened.

Clearly the girl’s got problems.

More than one. As they walked through the terminal, she wondered about another girl with problems. Dizzy. Had she survived? Julia hoped not, then felt terrible for it.

She also wondered if Nathan had made it; she definitely hoped so. Meredith’s aura was tinged with worry and heartache. Julia felt awful for her friend.

By the time they got to first class, she was feeling more melancholic than ever. She longed to be in the comfort of Cayne’s arms, but he felt miles away. She settled herself beside
Mer
, on the row behind Carlin and Drew, not caring that Cayne might not want to sit beside a stranger or that she sensed his aura, flickering with regret and pain. Correction: She cared very much about his pain. She just wasn’t sure anymore where the lines were with them.

The seat beside him remained open until the stewardesses finished tucking luggage away. Then the last passenger swaggered in.

Edan
moseyed to Cayne’s aisle and stopped there, resting his weight on one leg and looking like some kind of cowboy. “This seat taken?”

*

He sat before Cayne could reply.

Drew turned around, looking something between exasperated and rattled. “Who the hell is this?”

Cayne’s eyes met Julia’s—confirming
Edan’s
role in Cayne’s jailbreak. When he turned his gaze to
Edan
, it was hard. “What are you doing here?”

Edan
chuckled; even his chuckle sounded like trouble. “I let you out of that hellhole, and that’s the welcome I get?”

“Thanks. Now tell us why you’re here.”

           
“Haven’t I earned at least a modicum of trust?”

Julia turned in her seat, careful to keep her voice low. “Why would you think that? And yes, I know you helped me, too. Or offered to anyway.”

Cayne looked at her again, but she didn’t meet his curious gaze. “He works for The Three,” Julia said.

Everyone’s eyes widened, and
Edan
held up his hands. “I said I was a consultant. I don’t work for them, and I’m not here on their behalf. Go ahead, look.”

He meant Julia. She looked, and found that he was telling the truth—technically, anyway. She couldn’t find a lie, but she noticed something else:
Edan
looked different from anyone she’d ever seen—even Cayne, who also had a unique aura. Rather than pulsing wreaths of color (like the gentle, expanding stain of watercolor paints on a napkin),
Edan’s
aura colors were more…solid, and much brighter. They reminded her of a normal aura gone…radioactive or something. His colors were so vibrant she could drown in them. And they were hard to name. She saw some red—but it wasn’t red, exactly. More like…grape juice stain, with a little dash of crimson. For the most part, his aura was that weird non-red, a magenta which was oddly yellowish, and green. Envy. …Strange.

“He’s not lying,” Julia said. “He’s also not human.”

“A Nephilim?”

“No. I’ve never seen an aura like his.”

“What are you?” Cayne demanded.

“Man, you guys are tough. Okay, okay. Julia’s right, I’m not human.”

What he was, he said, was the failed product of a fallen angel mother and a human father. Their genetic material had been mixed by Chosen scientists in an attempt to make some kind of super-Nephilim weapon.

No one believed him, but it didn’t matter. The captain’s voice was crackling over the intercom system. Then the plane lurched forward, and they were taking off for Scotland.

Somewhere over Iceland, Julia was drifting off, her head on Meredith’s shoulder,
Mer’s
pretty alto voice saying, “It’s okay. You’ll get it figured out, with him.”

Julia nodded, struck by a surge of shock…that she actually had a girlfriend. Shock and appreciation. She gave Meredith’s shoulder an awkward little nuzzle. “I hope you feel better, too.”

By which she meant she was sorry about Nathan.

When an hour passed and neither she nor
Mer
had actually gone to sleep, Julia gave in and whispered into her black hair, “Was Nathan okay?” Meaning,
alive?

Meredith shrugged, a tiny jerk, and Julia felt sick. No freaking way. It wasn’t possible. Not Nathan.

“He’s alive, I think,” Meredith whispered finally. “I tried to get him to leave with me—but he wouldn’t. He told me even if there were…problems, we needed to stay and deal with them. He wanted me to stay.” A silent tear ran down Meredith’s cheek, and Julia tried and failed to imagine her friend having such an intimate conversation with Nathan.

As if reading her mind,
Mer
said, “He’s different with me. But I kind of wish he wasn’t.” Her voice cracked, and she plucked up a magazine, fanning her face. She looked at Julia out of the corner of her eye.

“You want to know something else?” Another tear ran down her cheek.

“Sure,” Julia whispered.

“He kissed me.”

“No
way
.” Nathan, Mr. I’m a Shepherd, See My Staff. Insane.

But Meredith was nodding. “And you know what else?” She breathed a small half sigh. “He was kind of good at it.”

*

The problem, they determined during the rest of the flight, was that Nathan was a Tool and Cayne was Morally Ambiguous and Shady, and the two of them probably needed to find new guys. Trouble was, that declaration didn’t change Meredith’s aura, and it didn’t remove Cayne from Julia’s mind, either. Especially when he was right behind her, shifting and breathing and stirring up Cayne-ness. Reminding her of his sweetness in the train depot. Making her ache to talk to him again.

They landed in Glasgow at midday local time and filed out of the plane into the airport, which looked slightly dingy compared to the one they’d flown out of, but was filled with friendly Scots who smiled and made jokes and were generally nothing like Cayne.

Carlin used a fraction of the huge amount of cash she’d withdrawn from the ATM to buy a beanie to cover her head from the cameras she felt sure were monitored by Illuminate-like Chosen, then asked an airline attendant about the timing of flights to Switzerland. They had thought about a Zurich connection, but it really didn’t matter. It was two fifteen, and all flights to Switzerland had flown.

“Come back tomorrow,” the woman told them. “You should make your reserves now.”

So Drew had been right. Maybe they would spend some time in Glasgow.

Julia suddenly realized, standing there in the lobby by a water fountain, that as they’d filed off the plane, they’d followed
Edan
past the customs area; no one had ever asked to see their IDs, and wasn’t that a little weird?
  

As if on cue, he appeared in front of her, looking unarguably hot in straight-legged jeans and the kind of loose plaid shirt that rock guitarists wore. His caramel blond hair rolled in wild waves into his face—sleep-messy or just wild? She didn’t know. Scratch that. Didn’t
care
. “So J, what up?” He held out his hand for a high-five, but Julia dodged it. Carlin gave him the evil eye.

“I still don’t trust him,” she told Drew.

“Me either.”

“He’s alright.” That was Cayne, and Julia was surprised to hear him say
that
.

“You know, we don’t really trust you either,” Drew said.

Hr shrugged. “You’re stuck with me.”

“And if we don’t like it—”

“You don’t have to. I’m here for Julia only.”

Cayne was good at the dead-eyed stare. Drew tried his best to return it, but Julia could tell it was hard for him. “Drew, he won’t hurt anyone.”

Harm anyone, rather.

Before Drew or Cayne could say anything else, Julia raised her hand. “I nominate myself as group leader, and here’s my plan: Let’s stay in downtown Glasgow tonight, somewhere busy, where they would notice people with wings or blue fireballs, and we’ll come back tomorrow and figure out what to do about the tickets.”

Cayne nodded, clearly satisfied, but
Edan
didn’t look as sure. “If they’re coming, they’re coming. Don’t you think?” he said to no one in particular.

“You would know, spy.” Carlin glared at him, but Julia thought it looked a little forced.

“If you’re a failed experiment, why do they keep you around?”

He shrugged. “To see if I amount to anything, I guess.”

Again, there wasn’t anything in his aura that said he was lying, but Julia wondered how reliable his aura actually was.

“I don’t have a place,”
Edan
continued. “I’m on my own. All alone. Until I met you people.” He cocked his head, wearing an expression that made him look charmingly apologetic.

“So the
Chosen,
like, bred you?” That was Meredith—looking fifty percent disgusted, fifty percent shocked.
 

Edan
shrugged, his face twisting. “I don’t know much about it. Happened before I was born, you know.”

Juila’s
eyes wandered to Cayne, who was glancing down at his right wrist, still swollen and bloody, now wrapped in gauze—the wound presumably from a blood dagger since it hadn’t healed. “I know a place off the M8,” he said. “Clean, cheap, easy to defend.”

“I don’t think they’ll come yet,” Drew said. “They can’t fly, and we haven’t left much of a trail.”

“That’s a good thing,” Julia said, remembering the zombie freaks who’d broken her arm.

“Isn’t
anywhere
easy for a Nephilim to defend?” Carlin asked Cayne.

He shrugged and glanced at Julia, and she could sense his aloneness within the group; she looked down at her shoes, unwilling to bring him into the fold. Even if she felt totally A-okay with the Chosen-killer thing (which, of course, she never would), he’d still betrayed her. Lied by omission.